The EACR’s Top 10 Cancer Research Publications is a regular summary of the most interesting and impactful recent papers in cancer research. It is curated by the Board of the European Association for Cancer Research (EACR).
The list below appears in no particular order, and the summary information has been provided to us by the authors.
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K. Vriens, S. Christen et al., Nature volume 566, pages 403–406 (2019)
Short summary
Most tumors have an aberrantly activated lipid metabolism. However, only particular subsets of cancer cells are sensitive to approaches targeting lipid metabolism, particularly fatty acid desaturation. Yet, how cancers can evade drugs that inhibit fatty acid desaturation is unknown. The lab of Cellular Metabolism and Metabolic Regulation, led by Sarah-Maria Fendt (VIB-KU Leuven Center for Cancer Biology), discovered that many cancer cells can rely on an unexplored alternative metabolic pathway for fatty acid desaturation. Specifically, Kim Vriens and Stefan Christen identified various cancer cell lines, murine hepatocellular carcinomas, and primary human liver and lung carcinomas that desaturate palmitate to the unusual fatty acid sapienate to support membrane biosynthesis during proliferation. Sapienate biosynthesis enables cancer cells to bypass the known fatty acid desaturation pathway, which results in drug resistance. This discovery explains metabolic plasticity in fatty acid desaturation and constitutes an unexplored metabolic rewiring in cancers. Exploring this discovery is expected to lead to the identification of novel drug targets and an increased understanding of fatty acid composition induced alterations in cellular signaling.
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